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VoX's avatar
VoX
New Contributor

Why data caps are useless

Before I explain this it is very important to understand one thing. The Internet "data" is not in limited supply. What is in limited supply is bandwidth. Picture a 4 lane highway. At midnight the highway is virtually empty, so a lone car is free to travel very quickly and easily, but during rush hour, that same car gets slowed to a crawl when it is caught in the congestion. The internet works the same way as the highway. It does not matter how much data gets used, but how many people are trying to access data at the same time. This is why, during peak hours, the internet is naturally a little slower. The internet is not going to run out of data, and imposing data caps do nothing to curb sporadic bandwidth spikes. And even when bandwidth spikes, all that happens is surfing gets a little slower for everybody. This happens naturally, and doesn't require any penaltie fees. Up until a month ago, I had a great respect for cox communications, but this is simply a way to gauge money from people. I will be discussing this in person with some employees in the near future. Hopefuly they can provide a logical explanation for this nonsense.

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  • CarolLM's avatar
    CarolLM
    Former Moderator

    We always appreciate customers who take the time to give us their feedback. I’ll pass what you’ve said onto our management team.

  • Jerry's avatar
    Jerry
    Contributor II

    VoX said:
    The internet is not going to run out of data.

    The internet doesn't have data to run out of. It moves other's data from source to destination.

    To use the highway analogy, imagine no data caps, everyone is streaming 4K from Netflix during peak hours. That slow crawl congestion becomes an all lanes are blocked sig alert because of a jackknifed big rig on the 405. (It's a SoCal thing.)

    The data caps are meant to dissuade folks from getting into the habit of doing that. That being constantly using as much bandwidth as theoretically possible. As an added benefit (to Cox) it also dissuades people from streaming at all lest they discover they really don't need the TV part of their bundle.

  • StephanieS's avatar
    StephanieS
    Moderator
    Jerry

    Thanks for your input!

    StephanieS
    Cox Support Forums Moderator
  • VoX's avatar
    VoX
    New Contributor

    There are two inherent flaws with your argument. 1. Bandwidth is already tiered. For example, I have the fastest available internet package. I am paying for the privilege of having access to more bandwidth. 2. If, in some extreme scenario, cox ran out of bandwidth on a certain node, nature would take its course; the data stream would slow down until people got frustrated and logged off. The problem is self correcting.